I’m going to America. Specifically, I’ll be organising Telco 2.0 Americas in Orlando on the 9th and 10th of December. Then, I’ve got a two-and-a-half day layover in a hotel with marching ducks. The prose is worth quoting: In a special elevator, the five North American mallard ducks, four hens and one drake, comprising The…
Read More submarine, cocktail party, etcHere’s something interesting, from Kings of War; statistical analysis shows that there is no correlation between arrests on terrorism charges and the concentration of Muslims in the population. It’s almost as if…a gratifyingly small percentage of people are completely fucking stupid and pig-ignorant, that this is normally distributed in the population, and it’s essentially a…
Read More progress in the arsehole theory of terrorismWe had a post about the MQM in Karachi and the Taliban. Strangely enough, Reuters got a fascinating interview with the MQM mayor of Karachi a couple of days later. It’s a must-read – one of the main points that comes through is the way in which the struggle up on the frontier and in…
Read More revenue engineOK, so there’s a recently wrecked aircraft on an airstrip in northeastern Mali and the UN reckons it brought over 10 tons of cocaine into the new West Africa-Southern Europe smuggling route. However, no-one seems to know what type of aircraft it is or what the registration was. All sources I can find – which…
Read More I should really think of an Ali Farka Toure lyric title for this postThis is why the wanktanks (thanks, Brett!) anger me, and why they should anger you. In today’s Obscurer: The intriguing fact that the global warming trend of the late 20th-century appears to have come to a halt for the time being has led to growing public scepticism about claims of impending climate catastrophe. In view…
Read More Profiles in Wanktankery: GWPFCan anybody tell me why this isn’t a bigger story? Essentially, the government is buying 20-odd new Chinook helicopters for the RAF support helicopter force, and transferring the existing “green” Merlins to the Navy’s commando helicopter squadrons. This means a significant increase in helicopters, and relief for the Navy support helicopter squadrons, who have been…
Read More chopperOld friends Avient have got it wrong, losing their newly acquired MD-11F in an accident on take-off from Shanghai. We’ve blogged about this lot here, here, here, and here; I also happen to know they sometimes read the blog. There is much material on PPRuNe as well – try here. The weird bit about Avient…
Read More Avient; still tolerated, but for how much longer?This is hilarious. Computer Weekly reports on Sir Joseph Pilling, Identity Commissioner, and discovers that he didn’t have to apply for the job. And he’s very proud that the National Identity Register now contains 538 people. That’s almost one-and-a-half records a day for a year. (Where are we on that “300 day delivery timetable” again?)
Read More not such a giant databaseAlso spinning off that post, I’d like to reiterate a couple of points from this post and this one. As far as I can see, not much has changed since Beijing was identified as the world’s biggest concentration of compromised Windows machines; Spamhaus ROKSO looks pretty bad for the big provincial networks in ChinaNet and…
Read More more “cyberwar” nonsenseCracking post of Londonstani’s; perhaps he should retitle as Continuity Abu M? However, it leaves me with one really big question. If I was a Taliban leader under Pakistani protection, I’d be really worried about moving to Karachi unless I knew whose side that city’s various armed factions were on. They’re various, as I say,…
Read More a trick question